He turned then, and with a clumsy flourish of his cape he strode away. But his stride lacked some of its usual arrogance, as if some of his pride had leaked out of a small rupture in his side.
‘“Trust me”, he says,’ Philmon muttered. ‘I wouldn’t trust that man as far as I could spit.’
‘Did you notice anything missing?’ Tab said.
‘Like what? Tab? Where are you going?’ He jogged after Tab, who had turned and was striding up the hill, back towards the palace.
‘Did you notice anything missing?’ Tab repeated when he’d caught up to her. ‘What was Fontagu carrying when he left the palace?’
‘Um… just his script.’
‘And did he have it just then?’
Philmon frowned as he tried to remember. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘So either he dropped his script, or Red-head took it. And I doubt that he’d drop something so precious. And did you notice how Fontagu managed to avoid telling us how he knew Red-head?’
‘So where are we going now?’
‘We’re going after Red-head, obviously.’
‘What are you going to say to him?’
Tab stopped and regarded Philmon for a long moment. ‘I’m going to ask him why he was so mean to our friend Fontagu,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Honestly, Philmon, you must think that I’m quite the idiot.’
‘I just wondered.’
‘All I’m going to do is follow him.’
‘Can I come?’
‘I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.’
INTENTIONAL TOURISTS
Tab and Philmon ran. Red-head was out of sight, but they were well practised at spotting particular people in a crowd, and before too long they saw him, limping, but limping quickly.
‘I bet he’s going to the palace,’ Philmon said.
‘Of course he is. The only thing is, I didn’t see him there when I was mind-melding with that pigeon.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. He might have been in another room.’
They followed Red-head at a safe distance, and eventually they saw that Philmon had been right. The man strode confidently – if slightly lop-sidedly – to the guards who stood at the front gate of the palace. He nodded to them in a very familiar manner, before simply strolling in.
‘I knew it!’ said Philmon.
‘Congratulations,’ Tab replied. ‘Come on, follow my lead.’ And without giving Philmon a chance to respond or refuse, she wandered over to one of the guards at the gate.
The soldier regarded them with a wary look. ‘What does you want?’ he asked in a strange, clipped accent.
‘Oh no, we’re perfectly all right,’ said Tab. She looked up at the front gate of the palace and whistled in awe.
The guard shook his head. ‘No, you no all right. You leaving, is what you are.’
‘But we’re tourists,’ Tab replied.
‘You no tourists,’ the guard argued. ‘They no have tourists in Quentaris since before the Spell of the Undoing.’
‘If we weren’t tourists, we’d know that already, wouldn’t we?’ Tab replied.
The guard frowned as he thought this over. It seemed like quite a lot for his brain to process. Then, suddenly, he lowered the tip of his halberd. ‘You must think I a complete eediot,’ he said.
‘Oh no, not at all. We don’t, do we?’ Tab asked Philmon, who simply shook his head. ‘So, you work here, do you?’ she went on.
The guard said nothing. Instead, he patted his halberd.
‘Of course,’ Tab giggled. ‘Silly me! So, you’re a real palace guard! I suppose you’d know everyone here, probably?’
The guard shrugged. ‘Pretty much.’
‘You see, we’re from out of town, like we said…’
‘Tourists,’ Philmon interjected.
‘Yes, and we thought we saw someone we knew.’
‘Really?’ The guard seemed rather disinterested. ‘Who you think you know?’
‘The man with the red hair who came through a couple of minutes ago. Short.’
‘Fat,’ said Philmon.
‘And with a limp.’
‘Hmm,’ the guard replied.
‘What was his name?’ Tab enquired.
‘I can no tell you that.’
‘Was it Asro Mendeley?’ she asked, plucking a random name out of her head.
The guard shook his head. ‘That’s no his name.’
‘But I’m close, right? Asro Melando?’
‘No.’
‘No, no. Astrin Nando?’ Tab clicked her fingers, then thumped her forehead with her fist. ‘Oh, it’s on the tip of my… Argo Nadro -’
‘Kalip Rendana.’
‘Ah!’ said Tab, slapping Philmon on the arm. ‘Of course! Kalip Rendana!’
‘I told you,’ Philmon said. ‘I told you it was Kalip Redondo!’
‘Rendana,’ Tab corrected him. ‘And he’s in charge of the kitchen in the palace, right?’
The guard sniggered. ‘Hey,’ he called to the other guard, who was standing on the opposite side of the wide stairs leading up to the huge main doors of the palace. ‘This lot reckon Rendana work in the kitchen!’
The second guard spluttered with laughter. ‘If he hear you say that he run you through with his leetle knife!’
‘His little knife?’ Tab asked.
‘That’s right. He a friend of Janus.’
Tab snapped her fingers. ‘Of course! Yes, I remember now! Kalip Rendana! Yes, I saw him nod to you, though. Both of you! You know him. You actually know Kalip Rendana?’
‘Sure I do,’ said the first guard. ‘We both do – him and me. Know him for years. We used to work for him, before we come aboard back when Quentaris was over Unja Ballis. He got us this job. Us and plenty our friends working in palace now. This job good job.’
‘Aha!’ Tab nodded. ‘So you came aboard from Unja Ballis! I knew I’d never seen him before.’
The guard frowned. ‘I thought you say you tourists. You not tourists at all! You both from Quentaris.’
Tab bit her bottom lip. ‘Oops. Well thanks, it’s been… Bye!’
And she and Philmon turned and ran.
‘Who is it?’ Fontagu called, his voice sounding strained, and muffled through the heavy door.
‘It’s me, Tab.’
‘Can’t you children leave me alone?’
‘It’s just me,’ Tab replied. ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘So you can insult me again?’
‘It’s not like that, Fontagu. Can’t you just let me in?’
She heard him sigh. ‘Hold on.’ A moment later the door rattled and swung open. By the time the gap was wide enough to let Tab see inside, Fontagu had already crossed the room and was sitting at his crowded desk once more, and his quill was scratching away at a sheet of parchment. ‘Close the door behind you,’ she heard him mutter.
Tab did as he said, then stood inside the doorway. Ordinarily she’d have sat herself down without a second thought, but this time she could feel the tension thick in the air between them. ‘Fontagu, I don’t want to fight,’ she said at last.
‘What makes you think that I do?’ he replied, without even glancing up. ‘Look, Tab, unless you’ve got something new to say to me, you should just save your breath and go.’
‘I do have something new to say. I know who the red-headed man is.’
Fontagu still hadn’t looked in her direction, but she saw his pen stop moving. ‘Even after we talked about this, you’re still spying on me?’
‘Fontagu, I told you, it was only because we care about you. We worry about you. Especially when we discover that the man who held you up in the street is actually working for Florian.’
Fontagu’s eyebrows flickered in a tiny frown. ‘What do you know about it?’
‘I know that his name is Kalip Rendana, and he came aboard Quentaris back when we were over Unja Ballis, a couple of months back. And he works for Florian’s man Janus.’
‘Does he indeed?’ said Fontagu, but his gulp gave him away.
‘He does. And he took your play, didn’t he?’